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Video / DVD

Frank Socolow in the 1940s

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 1, 2023

Despite enjoying a lengthy career, Frank Socolow recorded only two leadership sessions—one in 1945 and another in 1956. The paucity of recordings under his own name was likely due to his workload playing on other artists' recordings. Socolow had mastered bebop early in 1945, which made him a sought-after player by bands that embraced the new jazz style and needed players who could navigate the intricacies of bop arrangements. Born in New York in 1923, Socolow began his playing career ...

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Video / DVD

Documentary: Bill Crow, Jazz Journeyman

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 21, 2023

What do the following five recordings have in common? Stan Getz Plays (1951), the tenor saxophonist's first for Norman Granz's Clef label, which would soon become Verve. Here's Stella by Starlight... Al Haig's Isn't It Romantic from Jazz Will O' the Wisp (1954), one of the pianist's most beautiful trio albums. Go here... Jackie & Roy's Mountain Greenery (1955), which transformed jazz vocal harmony. Go here... Which, by the way, was lifted by Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore ...

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Video / DVD

Al Haig and Bud Powell

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 18, 2023

Yesterday, I posted about Al Haig playing on early bebop recordings in New York with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Which begs the question, did Haig conceive of his style on his own or was he influenced by other New York jazz pianists besides Art Tatum? The answer is a little of both. As Carl Woideck, author of Charlie Parker: His Music and Life, noted in an email after yesterday's post, “The early history of bebop piano is a challenge ...

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Video / DVD

Five New Dexter Gordon Videos

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 16, 2023

As jazz musicians go, Dexter Gordon was among the coolest. He walked cool, he talked cool and he played cool. Cool came naturally to him. Perhaps that side of him came from growing up in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Or perhaps it came from meeting all of the cool musicians his physician father treated, including Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. Here are five Dexter Gordon videos that recently were uploaded to YouTube: Here's Gordon in Europe in 1971... Here's ...

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Video / DVD

Burt Bacharach: Parting Post

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 15, 2023

My final post on Burt Bacharach will look at one of the lowest points in his life that resulted in a song, a theme for ABC's Movie of the Week and a tragic end. We tend to think of Burt as a guy who had it all—he was a brilliant composer, a stunning arranger and a solid pianist; he was athletic, ruggedly handsome and a soft-spoken, charming man who was as comfortable in his living room as he was on ...

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Video / DVD

Peanuts Hucko: Big Band Clarinet

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 4, 2023

A few days ago, when I mentioned Peanuts Hucko in a post on trumpeter Don Ferrara, I received a bunch of emails from readers either wondering who he was or chortling about his nickname. Michael “Peanuts" Hucko was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and would become one of the biggest and most prolific clarinetists after Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Buddy DeFranco. The name was given to him as a child after displaying an unstoppable passion for the shelled kernels. Hucko ...

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Video / DVD

Five New Videos of Count Basie

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 2, 2023

I'm always on the prowl for newly uploaded Count Basie videos. Yesterday, I found five I haven't seen before that appeared recently at YouTube: Here's Count Basie in a short called Hit Parade of 1943 with Dorothy Dandridge... Here's Part 1 of the Basie band in Milan on Italian TV in 1960... Here's Part 2 of Basie in Milan... Here's Basie with Tony Bennett, who sings For Once in My Life, All Of Me, Don't Get Around Much Anymore and ...

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Video / DVD

João Gilberto: Buenos Aires, 1962

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 31, 2023

Between the release of João Gilberto in 1961 and Boss of Bossa Nova in 1963—and three weeks before the famed bossa nova concert at New York's Carnegie Hall on November 21, 1962—João Gilberto performed at Club 676 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But he wasn't alone. Traveling with him were Os Cariocas, a phrase that translates as the “guys from Rio de Janeiro." The Cariocas were a four-man pop vocal-harmony group that sang while accompanying themselves on instruments. Recently released on ...

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